Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

I want to briefly respond. I do not want to take the time that Senator Ronaldson did because I do not want to engage in the verbosity, the repetitiveness and the general deliberately muddled presentation that Senator Ronaldson gave us just now and last night. Let me make a couple of key points in response. He alleges I was coughing in angst and shock and horror over Mr Rudd’s alleged mistakes. I have got a medical condition—it had nothing to do with the contention of Senator Ronaldson. Secondly, he accuses Mr Rudd of being motivated by focus groups and Sky News and of rushing policy. Well, on Senator Ronaldson’s own presentation of his arguments, the Labor leader, Mr Rudd, has not rushed this one. He raised this issue at the IFSA conference in August 2006, from which Senator Ronaldson quotes, and then he announced the specific detail of the Labor policy in May of this year. So it is hardly an example of a rushed policy, a muddled policy, a policy that was not adequately researched or a policy that relied on focus groups. We have the general populist position of Senator Ronaldson, and I look forward to him advancing this in other tax debates. Senator Ronaldson, the Liberal government and the Treasurer, Mr Costello, are opposed to tax concessional treatment or tax cuts for foreigners. Well, I would like to see him apply that principle to all legislation that comes before the Senate, because that has not been the position of Senator Ronaldson or the government in the past.